The Arts, and Faculties in Concert

Gall was more interested in nature than the arts, but how he approached the various arts shows how he organized his thoughts and that he was also pondering how his faculties must work in harmony. He had a special faculty for tune or music in his system and made it very clear that this faculty is involved with tonal relationships, not simpler functions, and must be a brain function. He also presented what led him to this faculty; showed why he considered music an innate talent; described how his studies of musical geniuses and birds led him to the cranial bump above the eye; and explained different kinds of music as reflecting the tune faculty working with others. In contrast to music, Gall listed a number of faculties that can figure into the fine arts: distinguishing the relation of colors, constructiveness, locality, distinguishing persons, and imitation. Here, too, he emphasized how faculties must work together and how other faculties figure into the choice of subject matter (e.g., flowers, battle scenes). He also had a faculty for poetry, which he defined broadly. He mentioned that great poets are born, not made; described its bump in the “superior part of the head”; and again alluded to how other faculties working with it would help determine what a poet would write about.